| Ancient or historic DNA is often overlooked as a useful tool for bioarchaeologists in determining past practices of populations, yet it can reveal familial relationships, ancestry, and individual sex, all factors, which previously could only be presumed by circumstantial archeological evidence. I predicted that if rural cemeteries were composed primarily of family plots, average relatedness should be higher than in urban cemeteries, which tended to be public. Historic DNA from forty individuals was extracted and genotyped using 15 Short Tandem Repeat (STR) loci and amelogenin, a sex-linked marker. There was a significant difference in relatedness between the Cottrell cemetery (rural) and the McElvaine cemetery (urban), suggesting that the population structure was indeed quite different for these founding populations. This study demonstrates that using forensic STR analysis is feasible for ancient DNA and that historic changes in burial practices can be seen in the genetic record of urban and rural cemeteries. |
